The Politics of Humanitarian Aid: The U.S. and Myanmar

President Bush was justifiably upset. A cyclone four days earlier had destroyed a large portion of Myanmar, and the country’s military junta was still refusing humanitarian aid. “Let the United States come to help you, help the people,” Bush pleaded with the junta. “We’re prepared to move U.S. Navy assets to help find those who’ve lost their lives, to help find the missing, to help stabilize the situation,” said the President, “but in order to do so, the military junta must allow our disaster assessment teams into the country.”

With more than 20,000 dead, possibly 40,000 missing, and close to one million homeless, the junta made it clear that it, not the international community, would provide whatever humanitarian aid was necessary.

A week before the cyclone hit, President Bush extended sanctions against Myanmar by another year because of what he called that junta’s “large-scale repression of the democratic opposition.” Paranoid about anything that could threaten its power, the junta was frightened that the United States would use the cyclone as a reason to invade the country.

The junta’s response the first week of May was little different than the international concern almost three years earlier. It wasn’t the destruction of villages and the rice farming industry, but the destruction of cities and the shrimp industry. It wasn’t a cyclone named Nargis, but a hurricane named Katrina.

It’s been well documented that the Bush–Cheney Administration, with its head in Iraq, wasn’t prepared for a natural disaster. Like the leaders in Myanmar, the Bush–Cheney Administration was slow to inform the people, and slow to act during the crisis. Less known is that President Bush refused innumerable offers of assistance to the people of the Gulf Coast.

More than 20 countries—including Israel, Mexico, China, England, and the Dominican Republic—quickly offered humanitarian and financial assistance. President Bush’s first response was to tell the audience of ABC-TV’s “Good Morning, America that he wasn’t “expecting much from foreign nations because we hadn’t asked for it.” He said that the United States was “going to rise up and take care of . . . . our own business.”

Cuba, which has one of the best health care and disaster response systems in the world, offered substantial medical supplies and 1,600 physicians, most of them specialists. Rejected.

Germany sent a military plane carrying 15 tons of emergency provisions. The United States denied it landing rights.

Not only did the federal government reject humanitarian offers from other countries, it either rejected or ignored offers by the American people and its own governmental agencies.

Before the storm hit, Amtrak offered trains to evacuate New Orleans. Ignored.

The Forest Service, shortly after Katrina came ashore, offered water-tanker aircraft to fight the fires. Ignored.

The Coast Guard, which would fly more than 20,000 rescue operations, offered 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel to Jefferson Parrish. The federal government refused to allow delivery.

The captain of an amphibious assault ship off the Gulf Coast offered to send her sailors onto land to help the people, have her helicopters assist in rescue operations, provide as much as 100,000 gallons of drinkable water a day, and open her ship’s operating rooms to provide medical assistance and 600 beds for the relief effort. The federal government ignored and then delayed her offer.

During the first week of the disaster, the federal government had ordered the Red Cross and Salvation Army not to go into the New Orleans disaster zone, falsely citing a lack of adequate security. Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico offered 400 National Guard soldiers the day the hurricane hit. However, they weren’t sent for four more days because of what Richardson called “federal paperwork” that the Pentagon insisted had to first be completed.

About 75 companies volunteered to use their own corporate aircraft to ferry supplies into smaller local and regional airports. When the federal government ignored the offer, the companies flew in more than 130,000 pounds of food and critical supplies, making determinations without federal assistance of where the needs were the greatest.

Hundreds of companies tried to provide several million gallons of drinking water and ice for the evacuees. The federal government either blocked their delivery or routed them on a circuitous path throughout the South, and never allowed them to unload their cargoes. Members of the International Bottled Water Association did provide 10 million bottles of fresh water for evacuees, but received no assistance from the federal government, which refused to return several phone calls.

A national corporation offered free telecommunications equipment but the federal government rejected it, according to Ern Blackwelder of the Business Executives for National Security. Blackwelder told the Atlanta Journal–Constitution that the government later contracted with the same company and paid for equipment that had previously been offered at no charge.

About a week after Katrina hit, the U.S. began accepting humanitarian aid, but only from countries it determined were its allies.

Make no mistake about it, the leaders of Myanmar are dictators who trample human rights, have led their nation into an extended economic crisis, and are interested only in keeping their own power. Almost a month after Nargis hit the Irrawaddy Delta, the junta is now finally allowing foreign aid, but not from the United States.

But also make no mistake about this. The United States under its current administration will continue to refuse humanitarian aid and personnel from Cuba, Venezuela, and any other country that doesn’t agree with the Bush–Cheney politics.

[Walter Brasch is professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University and president of the Pennsylvania Press Club. He is the author of the critically-acclaimed ‘Unacceptable’: The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina (January 2006) and Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush (November 2007), both available through amazon.com, borders.com, and other bookstores. You may contact Brasch at brasch@bloomu.edu or through his website at: www.walterbrasch.com.]

About Walter Brasch

Columnist, author, journalism professor. Latest book is BEFORE THE FIRST SNOW: STORIES FROM THE REVOLUTION, a look at the couterculture from 1964, as seen through the eyes of a "flower child" who is now middle-aged--and of the reporter who covered her story. The book is available through Amazon.com . . . Check out website, www.walterbrasch.com for further info. Or, just write me: walterbrasch@gmail.com

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